Lately, with portable audio equipment and the like being developed, headphones have become frequently used outdoors as well. In the case where the headphones are carried, tangling of input cords and the like are problematic.
Accordingly, there has been proposed a headphone with a cord take-up device, incorporating a mechanism which winds and retracts an input cord of the headphone into a housing of the headphone. The input cord take-up mechanism of the headphone with the cord take-up device is configured to have take-up means provided in a headphone housing and forced to wind and retract an input cord into the housing and ratchet means interacting with the take-up means, including a ratchet wheel in the form of a metal plate and an engaging pawl that is provided at one end of a turning arm in the form of a metal plate and that is forced toward the side of the ratchet wheel, preventing the input cord from being wound and retracted by the take-up means and allowing the input cord to be pulled out of the housing.
Thus, when the input cord is pulled out of the housing, there is an inconvenience that a harsh clicking sound is generated every time the engaging pawl in the form of a metal plate gets over a pawl portion of the ratchet wheel in the form of a metal plate.
Therefore, Patent Document 1 of related art proposes a structure in which such harsh clicking sound is reduced by providing a buffer material such as soft rubber or synthetic resin for a part of the engaging pawl in the form of a metal plate which comes in contact with the pawl portion each time the engaging pawl getting over the ratchet wheel in the form of a metal plate.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2000-253477